In many of these cases, however, US intelligence learned of the allegations only by virtue of reports from other assets who were themselves alleged to have engaged in similar abuses. Some of these sources, though, had grudges against those about whom they reported and thus may have had an incentive to fabricate or exaggerate allegations.
The IOB notes that US national interests, with respect to Guatemala and elsewhere, can in some cases justify relationships with assets who have sordid or even criminal backgrounds, including human rights violations. In fact, it will often be the case that the best placed sources of information on nefarious activities are not entirely clean themselves. There should be, however, an effort explicitly to balance the value and uniqueness of an asset's contributions against the seriousness and reliability of any allegations against him. We believe it critical that this balancing process take place in the context of broad US interests. It should be noted that, in carrying out domestic law enforcement activities, US authorities regularly weigh such considerations in entering into informant relationships with persons who have criminal backgrounds. Among the potential costs to be considered in establishing or continuing such relationships with foreign intelligence assets are: their moral implications, the damage to US objectives in promoting greater respect for human rights, the loss of confidence in the intelligence community among members of the Congress and the public, and the effect of such relationships on the ethical climate within US intelligence agencies. In February 1996, largely as a result of the inquiries related to Guatemala, the CIA did issue guidance for dealing with allegations of serious human rights violations or crimes of violence by assets and liaison services. We believe this new policy strikes an appropriate balance: it generally bars such relationships, but it permits senior CIA officials to authorize them in special cases when national interests so warrant, We are disturbed, however, that until the recent Guatemala inquiries, the CIA had failed to establish agency-wide written guidance on such an important issue.
Among the most serious examples of credible allegations against a then-active CIA asset were those involving an asset who was the subject of allegations that in multiple instances he ordered and planned assassinations of political opponents and extrajudicial killings of criminals, as well as other, less specific allegations of unlawful activities. Although some of these allegations were from sources of undetermined or suspect reliability, one was from a source considered credible by the station at the time. Another asset was alleged to have planned or to have had prior knowledge of multiple separate assassinations or assassination attempts before and during his asset relationship. A third asset has been alleged to have participated in assassination, extrajudicial killing, and kidnapping during and before his time as an asset.
The station informed DO headquarters through intelligence reports or operational cables of those allegations against its assets and liaison contacts of which it was aware. (In one significant instance, though, when the station requested authority to recruit a particular asset, it failed to remind headquarters of an assassination allegation previously made against him.) DO headquarters, however, appeared in practice to attach too little weight to human rights issues and reacted contemporaneously to human rights allegations against only a few of the assets. This conduct was probably the predictable result of an arrangement in which the necessary balancing, when done, was conducted informally, and was done exclusively by CIA DO division-level managers and chiefs of station--whose performance and awards systems emphasized recruiting and maintaining productive intelligence assets.
Of great concern to the IOB is the apparent lack of sensitivity before September 1994 by DO headquarters or the station to the series of allegations against a particular asset, especially in light of a reliable report that he was directly involved in an assassination. No CIA officials we interviewed recalled this asset as having presented a human rights problem, nor could any officials provide an explanation for the absence of an reaction to the allegations. We found no cable traffic or other written record of deliberation concerning the asset prior to late 1994. The CIA maintained its relationship with the asset despite his egregious record of human rights abuse allegations until the relationship was finally terminated as part of the September 1994 review.
Of those assets alleged to have committed serious human rights violations, relationships with all but a few were terminated prior to September 1994 for a variety of reasons; of these, only one relationship was ended principally because of a human rights allegation. After the September 1994 review of Latin American assets, relationships with the few remaining such assets were terminated because of allegations of human rights abuse such as assassinations and kidnapping.
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